Aug 25. The Cabinet gave a month for the Economic Development and Trade Ministry to rework the issue of lowering VAT from 18% to 12%. Economic Development and Trade Minister Elvira Nabiullina is against raising taxes in Russia, while the finance ministry is of another opinion: this month the ministry published a draft financial plan until 2023 that proposes lifting social taxes starting 2010 and reform state-run (oil revenue) funds worth USD 162 bn with the goal of spending the entire amount of the National Welfare Fund to support the pension system. The finance ministry and its head Alexey Kudrin are also eager to lift taxes starting 2010: to increase the unified social tax – the fundamental of the Russian pension system – for employers to 24.7% from 21.5%, and to charge an additional contribution from employees born after 1967 to the cumulative section of pensions in the amount of 3% of a taxable wage. The finance ministry expects that following the execution of its proposals the average pension will top a pensioner's subsistence level by more than 100% by 2013, 5-fold by 2030 and 10 times by 2050. The ministry also proposed that the gas extraction tax and excise duties should be revised given inflation as of 2010. EDTM built a proposal to cut the VAT rate to 12% starting 2010 into a draft long-term development program until 2020. The finance ministry is against this initiative, saying lower VAT could cause federal revenues to decline and greater reliance on crude oil prices. MinFin, a vehement opponent of VAT reduction, proposes, as an alternative, decreasing the corporate profit tax, saying this step will be more efficient for economic growth.